Diversify Your Customer Reviews

“Don’t put your eggs all in one basket” is my favorite idiom for it’s irony. I’m not exactly sure why you’d want to travel with your dozen or so large grade-AA eggs in their own individual compartments–seems like a hassle. The lesson is sound while the straight meaning may not be (unless there’s some 17th century egg-carrying method I’m not aware of).

The lesson of this strange, seven-word fable is valuable for numerous reasons.

Customers Want a Choice

Customers are more willing to leave you a review if you give them more than one option. Even if it’s a site as widely known as Yelp, that doesn’t mean customers will leave reviews there. In order to leave a review on sites like Angie’s List or Yelp, they have to have an account (for the former, they have to pay for their membership). For the ultimate golden nuggets, Google+ reviews, customers need a gmail address which might have a slightly higher membership than Yelp but not much. Basically, give customers the option to leave reviews where they feel most comfortable.

Customer reviews in more places will also result in more links showing up in Google with your business name attached to great feedback about your business. This builds credibility not only of your business’s brand but seeing your customer base spread across the field, so to speak, makes all those reviews the more believable. It’s hard to accuse a business of faking or influencing the content of reviews when they’re all over the place.

When the Clouds Disperse

Without turning to obvious examples, let me give you an example from my personal life. Outside of my 9-to-5, I write screenplays and writers like me have a lot of storage options. Cloud storage is growing as the most convenient for writers who like to work on the go and for teams of people working on one project.

Some screenwriters were using a specific cloud storage service called Scripped as their primary storage option. When the site’s servers were accidentally wiped in the middle of a transition in ownership, thousands of subscribers lost their work all at once.

I never used the service but it was a wake up call. I now back up all my work on a flash drive, my OneDrive cloud, and back up my computer every other week on an external hard drive.

Location, Location, Location

Screenwriters must diversify their storage sources as much as business owners must diversify their review sources. Google is an ever changing giant of features and Yelp has been up for sale for quite some time. After going public in 2012, it hasn’t grown as steadily as people expected it so now arguably the most recognized reviews directory is looking for a buyer which could mean anything for the future of the reviews and it’s system in place.

Having reviews on these sites are still important but having reviews on one of these sites can prove disastrous if they were to change tactics. If you’re a Customer Lobby member, use Smart Invites to provide links to Google+, Yelp, Angie’s List, and Facebook.